


Hiding our hearts from the ones we love

by myrish_lace



Series: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Homesickness, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jon Snow is King in the North, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Scheming, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 20:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11744130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrish_lace/pseuds/myrish_lace
Summary: Jon and Sansa try to to write to each other after the events of Epsiode 4 of Season 7 of Game of Thrones. They struggle to keep their loneliness out of the official letters they must send by raven.





	Hiding our hearts from the ones we love

**Author's Note:**

> Another installment in the Absence makes the Heart Grow Fonder series. Set between Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 7 of Game of Thrones. Spoilers through Episode 4. The next installment will have more comfort, I promise! I posted the start of this fic in my drabbles collection.

Sansa sat alone in her solar, tapping her quill on the table. She needed to be quick, or the ink would dry before she’d started. 

She could still hear Arya’s sword ringing with Brienne’s in the courtyard. Her sister had moved like a cat, like a dancer, coming to a draw again and again with Brienne. 

What had Arya lived through, to fight so gracefully and with such deadly precision? What drove her to keep a list of enemies close to her heart?

Bran had no list of enemies, but the light had gone out of his eyes. She'd wheeled Bran to his chambers an hour ago. Neither of them said a word.

What had Bran endured, to come back with no trace of his boyish smile, of the sweet summer child he had been? Why had he recited her own personal nightmares as they sat under the weirwood tree?

She'd blown on her hands to keep warm while he'd apologized for the cruelties she’d suffered at Ramsay’s hands.

He'd spoken in a strange, silky tone. His cool expression as he told her how "beautiful" she'd looked had chilled her. 

She suppressed a shiver. If he'd meant to offer her support, he'd failed. She'd fled the godswood, heedless of the snow on her dress, as if she could outrun the memories of Ramsay.

Jon had given her comfort. She could still feel Jon's strong arms around her when she'd broken down and cried about how Theon had helped her escape. Jon hadn't tried to tell her she'd be fine, or that all was well now that they were home. He'd listened, and stayed with her. She'd buried her face in his jerkin and felt safe enough to let the sobs come. 

Sansa sighed. The Starks were reunited, but her brother and sister had changed. Worry nipped at her heels. Worry, and fear. 

She missed Jon more each day. His absence was a fresh, stinging cut every morning.

She didn't dare seek out his mind through Ghost. Not until she could subdue her fears about him, and about Arya and Bran.

But Jon had been gone for more than a fortnight, and the Northern lords were growing restless. She had to send a raven to Dragonstone.

What could she safely say? 

_We’re all together now, Jon. Here in Winterfell. Arya can fight as well as Brienne, you’d be so proud of her, so happy. Bran can see…the future, the past…I’m not sure._

She still hadn’t moved the quill. She wouldn't risk writing something so personal in a letter that might be read by the queen. The sanctity of wax seals was a myth. Cersei had snapped them apart routinely in order to stay one move ahead of her opponents. Daenerys might be no different.

Even when they’d bickered, she and Jon had built a foundation of trust, and respect. She’d experienced, briefly, what security and contentment could be like.  

She’d felt safe enough to tease Jon, to challenge him. To touch him. 

She didn’t realize how his departure would wreck her until he rode out to Dragonstone. After their tight embrace in his chambers, she’d had to draw upon all of her training at King’s Landing to give him a small wave in public. Nothing more. She’d saved her tears for the privacy of her bedroom.

She could manage without him. She  _was_ managing.  She had Littlefinger under control (and, perhaps, some plans for Bran’s dagger). She closed her eyes.

_Jon, I don’t need you to protect me. But…I do need you to love me. I need you here where I can see your smile and sit next to you at dinner. Even when we fight, I feel safer with you by my side._

She wiped her tears away. The time for crying and childish dreams was over. Jon had entrusted her with the North. There was a war to win. 

She dipped the quill in the ink pot and began. 

***

Jon carefully washed the traces of white powder from his hands. He’d never been much of an artist, but Maester Luwin had taught him well enough that he could make a few scratches on a cave wall. 

He’d been desperate to solve his own good question. _How do I convince people who don’t know me that an enemy they’ve never seen is coming?_

And he’d woken up in a cold sweat enough times with visions of the slaughter at Hardhome. Skeletons in rags scuttling across the ice. The first time dead soldiers opened their bright blue eyes.

He hadn’t lacked for inspiration.

Thankfully, Daenerys had been impressed. Or maybe she'd fallen for his act. Tormund had slapped hm on the back before he left and reminded him how a "pretty lad" like himself might convince a stubborn dragon queen.

So he'd summoned up some soft looks, and a halfway decent speech about working together. If he was honest, the looks might have been more effective. 

And _still_ , she'd demanded he bend the knee. He gritted his teeth. 

He dried off and sat at his table. He’d had to weigh down the parchment with stones so the howling winds didn’t blow them away.

He’d been gone too long without word to Winterfell. The lords would be muttering in the Great Hall.

But the news he had to share would only make them angry. He could see Lord Royce’s face turn beet red as he read about his imprisonment on Dragonstone. About how a dragon queen had made bending the knee the price of his freedom.

And Sansa - Sansa would have to deal with the fallout. She’d take Lord Royce by the elbow and convince him not to lose faith just yet. She’d do it sweetly, flawlessly, far better than he’d be able to do in the space of this scroll.

The storm clouds were hard to see at night, but the dark, roiling mass outside his window meant harsh sleet tomorrow. Again.

He missed the snow falling in Winterfell’s courtyard. He missed Sansa’s smile, her light-hearted taunts, as much as he missed having her sitting next to him..

 _I never should have gone South. I never should have left her_. _If only I could talk to her...._

But after the blind fury that had flowed through his veins at hearing Theon speak Sansa’s name, he couldn’t risk reaching for her mind through Ghost.

He fisted his hand on the table. The memory of Sansa’s soft expression as she told him how Theon had helped her escape had stayed his sword. If not for her, Theon would be dead.

He remembered how Sansa had clung to him and finally let herself cry. The dry sobs that had wracked her body. He'd held her and soothed her. How he'd tried to stop thinking about the scent of her hair, or how close she was. He'd failed, just like he failed when they said goodbye.

She'd apologized for troubling him, once she'd dried her tears on his shirt. He could only kiss her forehead again. He loved her, and he'd protect her with his life. Her burdens were his burdens. 

He hadn't known how to say that without his voice cracking. So he hadn't said anything at all. 

He’d also been ashamed he hadn’t come for Sansa himself. He hadn’t known the danger she was in, but guilt burned in his chest all the same.

Davos had seen him trembling as he held Theon by the scruff of his shirt. He’d let go as soon as he saw his adviser’s grey hair out of the corner of his eye. Davos couldn’t know how deeply he cared for Sansa. No one could.

Jon ran a hand over his face.

_I may have lost that battle already._

First Littlefinger. Then Tyrion had needled him on the way to the throne room. Now Theon. And this time, there had been plenty of observers.

He'd given up any faint hope he'd had that his unbridled anger in the crypts was fleeting.

Until his nerves were steady, until his passion faded, he’d have to write to Sansa, rather than communicating through Ghost. 

But as the fire burned down in the hearth, he couldn’t think of how to begin.


End file.
